Hotel Shilla sets up first free shop in Macau

South Korea's Hotel Shilla Co. said Thursday it has opened its first overseas duty free shop in Macau, in a bid to tap the spending power of mainland Chinese tourists. Macau, a special administrative region of China, is dependent mainly on tourism and casinos for its economic growth. Over recent years, the former Portuguese colony has seen strong growth in revenue from its luxury boutiques and malls. The subsidiary of South Korea's largest conglomerate, Samsung Group, opened a 200-square-meter cosmetics specialty store in the Venetian Macau Resort Hotel, one of the special administrative region's best-known landmarks. Named Sweetmay, coined from the English word "sweet" and the Chinese word "mei", which means beauty, the shop will stock 16 South Korean cosmetics brands, including Hanskin, VOV, Banilaco and Danahan. South Korean cosmetics brands have become popular among Chinese consumers, attracted by their reasonable prices and endorsements by Korean celebrities. Up to 25 million people visit Macau a year, with mainland Chinese accounting for more than half that number. About 20 million people are estimated to visit the Venetian Macau Resort Hotel every year. Shilla officials said the company, which established a Chinese subsidiary earlier this year, plans to open Sweetmay shops in mainland China in the future.